‘DAM 999′ out, ‘Hugo’ leads Oscar nomination pack (Lead)

Los Angeles, Jan 24 (IANS) Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” leads this year’s Oscar nomination pack with 11 nods and “The Artist” is close behind with 10 nominations, while India’s only hope “DAM 999″ is out of the Academy Award race.

The nominations were announced here Tuesday.

“Hugo”, set in Paris of the 1930s, is about an orphan who lives in a train station, and is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton. It is adapted from Brian Selznick’s novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”.

“The Artist”, which the bagged maximum trophies at the recently held Golden Globe awards, has been nominated for best picture, best director (Michel Hazanavicius), best actor in a leading role (Jean Dujardin), best supporting actress (Berenice Bejo), art direction, cinematography, costume design, editing, writing (original screenplay) and original score.

Both films, along with “The Descendants”, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, “The Help”, “Midnight in Paris”, “Moneyball”, “The Tree of Life” and “War Horse”, left Indian filmmaker Sohan Roy’s $10 million “DAM 999″ behind in the Oscar race.

The movie was among the 265 films vying for the best picture trophy. It also stood a chance to grab nominations in the original song and original score categories. However, it failed to feature in the final list.

India’s other hope was the National award-winning Malayalam film “Adaminte Makan Abu” in the foreign language film category, but it failed to even find a place in the Oscar shortlist, released Jan 19. The final nominations for the category are “Bullhead” (Belgium), “Footnote” (Israel), “In Darkness” (Poland), “Monsieur Lazhar” (Canada) and “A Separation” (Iran).

The main competition in the best actor in a leading role category are George Clooney (”The Descendants”), Gary Oldman (”Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”), Brad Pitt (”Moneyball”) and Demian Bichir (”A Better Life”), apart from Dujardin.

Apart from Scorsese for “Hugo” and Hazanavicius for “The Artist”, the directors competing for the golden statuette this year include Alexander Payne (”The Descendants”), Woody Allen (”Midnight in Paris”) and Terrence Malick (”The Tree of Life”).